NAVIGATION:

31 Aug 2015

Dr. Cosmo’s Tape Lab "Coconut Summer Drop-In 432"

Coconut Summer Drop-In 432 is Dr. Cosmo’s Tape Lab’s second album of 2015 (and
third in less than a year), and I swear to god, this band just keeps getting better and
better.

On their new plate, the spaceheads are at the beach, using the sound of the Beach
Boys, circa "SMiLE", as a launching pad to explore yet another corner of the
psychedelic pop spectrum.

It all begins with a rousing cheer—“Ready! Steady! Ready, steady, BEACH!!!”—that
quickly morphs into an honest-to-goodness song, with the perfect melodies that
we’ve come to expect from this band. A whimsical arrangement has ukeleles
occupying the same space as theremins.

“Too Hot To Sleep” comes next. It’s a bouncy pop tune sung partially in Spanish,
although it never really recollects anything remotely “World Music.” At the end of
the song, the arrangement briefly devolves into a drum machine-propelled interlude
that sounds like a lost piece of “Revolution #9.” “Everybody’s talking about biscuits,”
they chant.

A segue into the pure cheese pop of “She’s Crazy” keeps the beach ball rolling with
lots of space echo and toy xylophones propelling the album along until the ukuleles
come back, joined by steel guitar and synthesized ocean sounds for the mostly
instrumental “Sailcoats Paradise”.

But the Beach Boys-isms keep coming back: “High Inside (The Lost Frontier)”
shamelessly rips off the sound of (and bits of melody from) “Surf’s Up.” While “Get
There While You’re Going” opens with a guitar lick reminiscent of “Help Me
Rhonda”, but the lyric about travelling by train and “seeing the nation’s towns pass
by before our eyes” smacks of the Americana themes that Brian Wilson and Van
Dyke Parks obsessed over once the cars and surfing themes were left behind.

If the album weren’t so damn good, one could write it off as a mere exercise—an
experiment in imitation. However, like XTC’s The Dukes of Stratosphear project, the
songs are good enough to rise above any such concerns. It’s another winner from
these extraordinary Glasgowians, who are quickly proving themselves one of the
best bands working today.